just below the above headline story on the NYTimes.com home page:

The Economy Is in Record Decline, but Not for the Tech Giants

Even though the tech industry’s four biggest companies were stung by a slowdown in spending, they reported a combined $28 billion in profits on Thursday.

Alphabet, Facebook, Apple and Amazon reported a combined $28 billion in profits on Thursday.

By Daisuke Wakabayashi, Karen Weise, Jack Nicas and Mike Isaac, July 30, 2020

A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook reported surprisingly healthy quarterly financial results, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record.

Even though the companies felt some sting from the spending slowdown, they demonstrated, as critics have argued, that they are operating on a different playing field from the rest of the economy.

Amazon’s sales were up 40 percent from a year ago and its profit doubled. Facebook’s profit jumped 98 percent. Even though the pandemic shuttered many of its stores, Apple increased sales of all its products in every part of the world and posted $11.25 billion in profit. Advertising revenue dropped for Alphabet, the laggard of the bunch, but it still did better than Wall Street had expected.

“The strong continue to get stronger,” said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. “As many companies are falling by the wayside, the tech stalwarts continue to gain muscle and power in this environment.”

The tech companies’ financial performance was a remarkable contrast to the overall health of the U.S. economy. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that the country’s gross domestic product fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year as consumers cut back spending. It was the steepest drop on record.

Combined, the companies reported $28.6 billion in quarterly net profit, underscoring how regulatory scrutiny remains more background noise and a distraction for them rather than an imminent threat to their businesses.

On Wednesday, a congressional antitrust panel questioned the companies’ leaders [....]